


You're a Million Ways to be Cruel

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, goldenswan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:25:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written for the Once Upon a Time Kink meme for the prompt: "She could break his heart so easily. If he still had one." </p><p>I've cleaned it up since posting it on the kink meme. It is 100% AU from current canon seeing as it was written fairly early on in season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're a Million Ways to be Cruel

**Author's Note:**

> I will tentatively be posting my old kink meme fills on AO3 (if this one is well received), and depending on the reception I may start writing more GoldenSwan fic again, though I'm still sitting on the fence here. I originally left the fandom because of all the ridiculous shipping drama, but seeing as things look to have calmed down finally, I figured I might dip a toe back in.

What was it about Emma Swan that made him feel like his insides were twisted in knots? Mr. Gold ran the thought through his mind as he hunched over the counter and attempted to use a jeweler’s magnifying glass on a sapphire ring. He was not a kind man, nor loving. Love eluded him. It had always been tenuously out of his reach, and when it had tempted him like a sweet low hanging fruit, he had let it slip out of his fingers due to his own self-destructive nature.

No, he certainly had no love left in him after that. Yet still, at Emma’s simple touch and command he had become pliant and silenced, his rage lulled into submission.

Lucky for Moe French.

The thought haunted him for days, leaving him drawn thin in his mind as the obsession grew. He slept with the chipped cup next to his bed, a comfort and a painful reminder of something he could not have and should not want.

The state he was in made him angry because he felt like his control was slipping from his grasp. Like so much water falling through the cracks of his fingers. His temper became so poor that the next time he saw her he felt his spite twist his mind.

“Sheriff Swan, making the rounds I see. Let me guess, you needed some advice on something?”

His words were to the quick, voice filled with forced civility. Her eyes widened a fraction, face full of bewilderment. She pushed back a few strands of blonde hair in a awkward gesture, almost as though she wasn’t sure what to do now.

“Actually, I thought you might want to join me for lunch? I wanted to talk to you about Moe French... and the cup.”

His mask of harsh amusement slipped from his face, his smile melting into a sneer. The shift in mood did not make her step down, instead her eyes hardened, and her face took on a determined quality that was pure Emma. He licked his lips slowly and darkly considered his next words.

“No, I already told you I have nothing to say on the matter. It’d be better for you to mind your own damned business Sheriff.”

He found himself drawn to her even as he pushed her away, because if he had really wanted her off his case he would have been less defensive, less emotional, and far more reserved. Instead he was snarling and raising his voice like a child.

“I could get a court order for you to go to counseling, you know. You obviously have some issues you need to work out.”

His whole body went ridged at the casual threat, his hand gripping the handle of his cane so hard his knuckles turned white.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Rage burned in his eyes as his lips curled back in undisguised scorn, he was reared back like a beast ready to strike. Emma only shook her head, her sincerity showing plain as day. Hate grew in his chest at the sympathetic look on her face, or maybe it was something else much worse, like need. Either way he could not stand the look on her face.

“I just want to help you, dammit! You aren’t as much of a beast as you like to paint yourself to be.”

The words shattered his composure and his hands reached out to grip her shoulders while his cane clattered to the floor. He laughed bitterly in her face.

“You do not know who I am or what I’ve done.”

She stared up at him with eyes full of understanding, no fight in her, “I won’t judge you.”

If she had challenged him he would have been able to respond, but instead his mouth went dry and words escaped him. She pried his fingers from her shoulders when he did not say anything over an extended length of time. Slowly she leaned over to pick up his cane, and then gently handed it to him. He took it reluctantly, his eyes blank.

“If you change your mind give me a call. We can talk at your place, or wherever you feel comfortable.”

In her absences he felt drained and his body slumped heavily on his cane.

 

 

A couple of days came to pass before he took up her offer. He just could not take it anymore.

She came to his home, sat in his house, and stared at him with patient eyes. It made him want to break something. Something like her.

“How’s Henry been? It must be hard not being able to talk to your boy?” he asked, though his voice was not unkind despite what he intended.

Her face fell hard, “We’re not here to talk about me.”

“But Emma,” he leaned toward her like a flower did sunlight, his eyes darken to the brim by pupil, “I think we should.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and stone walled him by refusing to answer.

He fell back into his seat and waved a hand, “What you’re doing here, right now, is very very dangerous. I’ve been patient with you, tolerant, kind even.”

“That’s why you tricked me right?” she added, obviously still sore about the election debacle.

“I helped you. No matter how many ways you put it, you needed me. You need me now, why else would you keep bothering an old man like me?”

She gave a derisive snort, an incredulous look marring her features, “The self-depreciation is a good attempt at misdirection, but I’m not falling for it. Is it that hard to believe that someone’s trying to help you?”

His head tilted to the side, a mirthless smile making the lines of his face deepen starkly. She did not seem to share his bemusement, her frustration given away by the way she pulled into herself.

“You want to help me, is that it?”

He rose from his seat, his cane at his side. His mind teased and taunted him with twisting thoughts jumbled in shapes of bodies and limbs intertwined. Him above her like a wolf, muzzle raised for a killing strike. He took a couple limping paces before he walked into the kitchen.

Her sigh still managed to reach his ears from over the sink as he filled the kettle.

“What are you doing?”

“Making tea.”

Her feet tapped lightly on the linoleum of his kitchen floor and only stopping just short of him. Lightly, almost tenderly, she touched his shoulder, “I know this is hard, Regina told me...”

The kettle clattered to the bottom of the sink abruptly halting her and what she probably believed to be a touching heartfelt speech. He turned on a dime, every motion shouting rage. Emma took a step back and he followed up, if not stumbling over his own leg.

“No. No, no, no! If you had any chance of helping me before, you just lost it Ms. Swan. Get the bloody hell out of my house.”

Instead of being meek, instead of caving and letting him have his way, she stood taller and pushed a hand to his chest.

“No, I’m not. You’re going to sit down, drink your damn cup of tea, and hear me out.”

Stunned he stood there, leg starting to ache from his earlier abuse. She did not wait for his answer, only left him there to take a seat at his kitchen table and wait.

After refilling the tea kettle with shaky hands he made his cup, and then they sat as his kitchen table. He held his mug tightly in clenched fingers in front of him like a shield.

“What I was going to say before you flew off the handle, was that Regina told me a complete sob story about you and Mr. French’s daughter. I wanted to hear your side of the story, because we all know that Regina loves to twist things around to her advantage.”

Irate, he put his mug down and tapped his fingers rapidly against the table top. He had let his emotions overcome him too quickly before, but she had stayed and stood up to him anyway. Rough around the edges little Emma, whose name he knew before she was freed from her mother’s belly, she was oh so brave.

“She... worked part time at my shop, we we’re very close. Her father didn’t like her working for me, and when he found out there were feelings involved he forced her to quit. She went missing after that.”

“I see,” Emma said slowly, her hands resting flat on the table, “I don’t think that’s quite what happened, but it’s more believable than what Regina told me.”

His eyes flickered with malice at the mayor’s name, “And what sordid tale did our dear mayor weave for you?”

Emma rolled her eyes, “Let’s just say that she made it sound like you we’re taking advantage of the girl, and her father made her quit because she kept coming home with bruises.”

The air around him seemed to broil with pent up anger, but this time he kept his rage in check.

“That’s what I mean, you obviously cared about her, you wouldn’t react like that otherwise. I know what a serial abuser is like, and you don’t fit the profile Mr. Gold.” She watched him as he took in her observation, her eyes filled with a dark knowledge.

He swallowed convulsively as his heart twisted in a foreign sensation that he could not excuse as hate anymore. Numbly his fingers squeezed at the bridge of his nose before he went to take a sip of tea. It was long cold. Disgusted, he set the mug back down and shoved it away.

“Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Emma mused, her face still heavy with unspoken thoughts. He wanted her then, wanted her to be near him, to whisper all her secrets and bear all her scars. He wanted desperately to share his with her.

“Yes it is.” The words came out with an edge of desperation that made him despise himself.

Her eyes caught his, almost as though she was seeing him for the first time. With a stiff turn of his head, he let her see what he wanted, what he craved. She did not look frightened, surprised perhaps, but not frightened.

The chair she sat in scraped loudly against the floor when she pushed it back to rise. He looked down at his hands while waiting for her to leave so he could pull his heart off his damned sleeve. Instead she pushed him farther back into the seat and crawled into his lap.

“This... I can’t offer you much, this doesn’t mean anything.” She explains as her mouth presses to his jaw. He groans softly at the gentle touch. She is as damaged as him, but in that moment he promised himself he would have her, do anything to have her. She had dug herself a spot where his empty chest used to have a heart, and now if she was not there to fill it, he would simply go mad.

His arms wrapped around her possessively as he pressed his mouth to hers in a hungry kiss that she seemed unprepared for. He wanted to drowned her in his need and take whatever pureness was left under all her painful history and make it his.

He kissed her cheek, chin, neck, before his tongue tentatively moved to slid against the soft skin of her collarbone. Her eyes clenched shut at his ministration, lips swollen and parted. The ache between his legs grew insistent and he pressed himself into her warmth, greedy for it.

They moved onto the floor, where he laid her sprawled out on her back. Her eyes watched with anticipation. He stripped her bare, his bad leg protesting as he kneeled between her thighs, eyes lingering on every little nick and scar that was hidden under her clothing.

She looked oddly shy beneath him, like his gaze alone would consume her whole. He leaned farther over her body, mouth going to one tender breast, two fingers slipping inside her already moist folds. Oh she was tight, her muscles already contracting around his slim digits. His thumb stroked over her hard nub in tandem with every thrust. Her body arched as his fingers twisted inside her, small gasping breaths and fingers clawing at the linoleum in a testament to her mounting pleasure.

He did not stop until he had her convulsing around him, her orgasm tearing a sobbing cry from her lips. Satisfied, he unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned, unzipped, and then shimmied his pants down his hips.

They stared into each other’s eyes, his hair falling to curtain around their faces. He pulled her closer to him as he pushed into her. It was tormenting how good she felt, how the slow slide of his shaft forcing her folds to give and let him in made his body strain with tension.

He closed his eyes tightly, her body pulling him in farther and feminine hips urging him to push in to the hilt. Slim arms wrapped around him. Her fingers began digging into the fabric of his suit jacket. Their foreheads touched lightly, but they did not kiss. One of her hands loosened its grip on his clothing to slip up and tug lightly at his hair. He hissed as his head jerked back to bare his throat at her insistent pulling and her teeth and tongue moved to his adams apple.

He jerked his hips roughly as she sucked at the tender skin of his neck. Her head fell back against the linoleum and at the sound of her low groans his cock thickened. Her walls pulsed around him and he felt himself approaching the edge, his fingers slipping between them to bring her with him. A few more deep thrusts and she was cumming again around his aching cock, forcing him into release. He moaned in pain as his knee gave out and he attempted to catch himself with his hands, hips still jerking in the aftershock of his orgasm.

When he tried to roll away, but she pulled him closer, it was a move he did not even try to resist. His body craved her warmth through the denseness of his clothes.

“Emma,” he sighed into her soft blonde hair. Both of them shifted lethargically until he was on his back with her head resting on his chest.

She made a noise that sounded vaguely like ‘What?’ into his ribcage.

He wanted to ask her to stay, to spend the night in his bed, and to never leave. Instead he let his head fall back against the floor, one hand stroking lightly at her back.

“Thank you,” he said. The words were not choked with emotion, but instead they were soft and guarded. He would have her eventually, but he would have to break her first.


End file.
